James Mulhern’s writing has appeared in literary journals over one hundred and fifty times and has been recognized with many awards. In 2015, Mr. Mulhern was granted a writing fellowship to Oxford University. That same year, a story was longlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize. In 2017, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His novel, Give Them Unquiet Dreams, is a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2019. He was shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2021 for his poetry. Recently, two of his novels were Finalists for the United Kingdom’s Wishing Shelf Book Awards.James Mulhern’s writing has appeared in literary journals over two hundred and fifty times and has been recognized with many awards. In 2015, Mr. Mulhern was granted a fully paid writing fellowship to Oxford University. A story was longlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize that same year. In 2017, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Two of his novels were Finalists for the United Kingdom’s Wishing Shelf Book Awards. His novel, Give Them Unquiet Dreams, was a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. He was shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2020 for his poetry. Mr. Mulhern is a professor at Broward College and Atlantic Technical College in South Florida.

Longing

English colleagues ask me questions about literature.

I explain things as completely as I can.

They consider me an expert and believe I am smart.

Knowledge makes me important, they think.



I spend nights reading books or browsing the internet,

devouring morsels of information,

and I forget my longing to be liked—

meaningful as the dash in a Dickinson poem.



Mostly, I feel empty and small—

a space between words or a tiny font.

The colon at the end of an unfinished thought—

something forgotten and unknowable, preceding naught.